6:45 AM. It started very abruptly, with virtually no salivation, but a little jaw-snapping. The flopping was significantly reduced in violence - in fact, this was the first time I ever touched him while he was having a seizure; I was afraid he was gonna fall off, so I just sort of grabbed him by his lower body - he was laying on his right side - and slid him back away from the edge. The noise was different, too - instead of the distinct separate snarls, he made almost a continuous moaning kind of sound. All in all, the seizure lasted probably not more than 15 or 20 seconds. When it ended, he lay absolutely still for at least two minutes, with fairly frequent body jerks for the first 30 or 40 seconds, and then nothing. Eventually, he jumped down and headed off to the kitchen to find food. His coordination seemed unaffected, and while he clearly wanted something to eat right away, he wasn't panicky about it or anything.
So, now I'm left once again wondering if this was my fault. I couldn't find him yesterday for hours - crawled around looking under the couch and under the bed and up and down the stairs, with no sign of him. I did all the little tricks that usually get him to come out, and none of them worked. Finally, when his phenobarb pill was three hours late, he just appeared out of nowhere. I've never understood the whole thing about having to give the phenobarb at exactly the same time every day, when you can do a blood test anytime at all on the assumption that the drug reaches a level in the blood that stays consistent. Anyway, was the late pill the cause? Or was it that I'd reduced the phenobarb dosage 20% (2mg. per dose) a week ago? Previous occasions that I reduced the dosage, it seemed to take about a week to show up in a seizure. While the last phenobarb blood level was in the acceptable range - 32.4 - it was quite a bit higher than it had been, and I don't want to take a chance on going back to the higher dosage if there is any choice at all.
I'm so sorry to have seen the wonderful five and a half weeks of no seizures end.
